Living with Ghosts

After an outstanding pack of 12-inches for Scuba's Hotflush Recordings, London DJ and producer Sigha a.k.a James Shaw confidently returns to the label with his heavily anticipated debut LP, 'Living WIth Ghosts'. For this offering he presents twelve impressive techno and ambient productions and fuses his love of classic UK techno with the contemporary sound that currently pulses through Berlin’s Berghain. Since his 2009 debut on the label, Sigha has organically shifted further and further into the straight 4/4 realm of techno, embracing the subterranean, darker soundscapes of his new production homebase, Berlin. However, hiding under all that bass, one can still hear the whisper of many long forgotten shoegaze numbers - My Bloody Valentine, Sonic Youth and Slowdive, some of Sigha's heaviest influences, vibrate throughout. Years of playing guitar in London bands defined Sigha's musical start and gave him an ear for the emotive. He was able to merge both worlds after quite literally stumbling across techno by chance, igniting his love of electronic music. Ever since, he's expertly navigated the halls of UK Garage and dub, releasing on Hotflush, Blueprint and his own fledgling imprint, Our Circular Sound, finely tuning his style, eventually landing squarely in a place where he feels most at home: techno. Kicking off the journey is the falsely pacifying and ethereal track 'Mirror', a brief lull before the onslaught of melodic sonic doom that is 'Living WIth Ghosts'. From the oscillating come-up dubbiness of 'Ascension' to the banging heavenliness that is 'Puritan', to the dripping wet, acid-licked 'Scene Couple', Sigha only comes up for ambient air on 'Suspension' before plunging back down for more. 'Dressing for Pleasure (Ideal)' and 'Dressing for Pleasure (Extract)' are both awash with the cold hallmark sounds of Regis, while the bleak, minimal surfaces of 'Delicate' and 'She Kills In Ecstasy' perfectly soundtrack the inescapable morning-after come-down,